rice was paying visits to members of the foreign relations committee. that's her first stop in the nominating process if the president does pick her. senator john mccain later confirmed to nbc news that he will be meeting with ambassador rice tomorrow along with lindsey graham of south carolina. they have joined john mccain in criticizing the potential nomination of susan rice, criticizing that nomination on the basis of ambassador rice's role in explaining what happened in the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi. now nbc's andrea mitchell is reporting tonight that the acting director of the cia is going to be joining ambassador rice in person for that meeting tomorrow with those critical senators. we'll keep you posted if we learn more about this breaking news tonight. but the long and short of this is, number one, the acting cia director getting involved in

resolving the factual matters that have been contested by republican senators, and two, we have the strongest signal we have had yet about who the president will likely nominate to replace hillary clinton. the highest profile position in the cabinet, alongside the attorney general, but it's big news in politics and big news in terms of american diplomacy. cabinet nominations are not always fights. but in this case, a susan rice secretary of state nomination is something that some republicans have said they would love to have a big fight over. signs tonight indicating the president is not going to be shying away from that fight. big news from washington tonight. the context for the start of a second term here in terms of this president could not be more stark. we think about this historically. when ronald reagan was reelected in 1984, ronald reagan won this

many states on the electoral map. you can stop your counting. he won 49. ronald reagan, 49 states. it was a landslide. look at the electoral vote tally. ronald reagan, 525, walter mondale, 13. president reagan decided what he was going to sail toward, what he would prioritize after that overwhelming endorsement of him as president, what he would work on was war in central america. >> president reagan warned of a new danger, support for the leftist government from nicaragua. the president sees that as still another reason we should renew our support of the rebels. >> a new danger we see in

central america is the support being given by gadhafi's libya and most recently iran. >> the iranian connection was brought up as he put pressure on congress to resume funding for the rebels in nicaragua. >> countering this by supporting freedom fighters is essentially acting in self-defense. >> self-defense, which would be true if he were the president of nicaragua. but as president of the united states of america, president reagan even after the huge victory could not convince the united states of america that waging war in nicaragua would actually be self-defense. it would be in our self-interest. so president reagan when he couldn't persuade the country, instead he would wage the war in secret. that secret war in central america led to the huge second

term failure of the ronald reagan presidency, which was the iran contra affair. it's amazing that in that scandal he avoided impeachment. 14 administration officials up to and including the defense secretary were indicted. the only reason most of them staid out of prison is because poppy bush pardoned them. it was a disaster. that was ronald reagan's second term after he got reelected with a map that looked like this. when fdr got reelected to his second term, the map was almost the exact opposite. this was 1936. fdr did better than reagan. he got 523 electoral votes. his opponent got 8 electoral votes. in the same way that reagan did 50 years later, fdr came back to washington with big plans for what he would do in his second term now that the country had given him this huge vote of confidence. >> tonight, sitting at my desk

in the white house, i make my first radio report to the people in my second term of office. >> this was one of fdr's fire side chats taking his message to the american people. in this first one that he did after getting reelected by the closest thing we have to a unanimous vote in this country, he said he wanted to change the u.s. supreme court. he wanted to add more judges to the supreme court and he wanted to give them the president the power to replace sitting justices. it was a radical proposal. listen. >> those opposing this plan have sought to arouse prejudice and fear by crying that i am seeking to pack the supreme court. if the appointment can be called packing the courts, then i say that i and with me the vast majority of the american people favor doing just that thing-now. >> right after being reelected

to his second term, franklin roosevelt made his case for packing the courts saying he had the american people on his side to do that. he did not have the american people on his side to do that. or he didn't have enough to prevent that unsuccessful proposal from going down in history books everywhere as fdr's court-packing scheme. nothing ever gets called a scheme if it works or if people look kindly upon it. but that was fdr's second term. do you want to know when watergate happened? his second term. when katrina happened? george bush's second term. when barack obama was elected the first time, they summed it up with this head line. "black man given nation's worst job." that was for the start of his first term. might be more apt for second term.

the second term is when the job turns out to be a difficult job for presidents. if you go back to woodrow wilson in his second term trying to join the league of nations, that was pretty much the end of wilson. that was his second term. when it was truman in his second term during the korean war, he fired general mcarthur. the country responded by throwing parades for the general who got fired. and harry truman left office with approval ratings that dick cheney would kill for, but for everyone else would see that as a disaster. second terms are almost always seen as a disaster, then at least when the big disappointments happen and often the failures. when the soviet union beat us, when the soviet union beat the united states to put the first space satellite into orbit, when no nation had put something like

that -- up in space and had it stick there and the soviets did it first with sputnik, when they beat us in a race we were also running in, it was during president eisenhower's second term. second term. it's not like bad things and challenges and failures don't happen in first terms too. but there's something that we understand as americans to be as certain as death and taxes and that is if there's something that's going to suck in a particular presidency, it's probably going to happen in the second term. that's been true for so long that this white house has to be keenly aware of the famous second-term curse. and in fact, the president says he's aware of it. >> i don't presume that because i won an election that everybody suddenly agrees with me on everything. i'm more than familiar with all the literature about presidential overreach in second terms. we are very cautious about that.

on the other hand, i didn't get reelected just to bask in reelection. i got elected to do work. >> it is explicitly with the context of difficult second terms in mind that president obama right now is reviewing what his options are for what he wants to do now that he's reelected. also put more democrats in the senate and more democrats in the house to go alongside. there's no shortage of advice about what he should do in his second term that he was not able to do in his first. "the new york times" says he should close guantanamo. "the new york times" a few days ago said he should work on election reform, when she said is something we have to fix. the long lines at the polling places.

voter suppression. these protesters at the white house last week are using a giant inflatable fake pipeline to make their case that when president obama put off until after the election the decision about to approve the oil pipeline that the results of this alexei he shouldn't approve this pipeline when he gets around to it next year. the new york city police commissioner took a direct shot at the president when he said the president hadn't led on gun control. if you swing a dead cat near the capitol, somebody would insist what the president must do first and foremost is comprehensive immigration reform. facing all of this advice and competing pressures, nobody can say what this president most wants to do in his second term. nobody can say what his agenda is going to be. but he and his white house and his presidential election campaign which has disbanded but

still seems to be around, they have been more than clear that what the president is going to do first is work on getting the bush tax cuts extended for income levels below $250,000. that's the president's first priority. that's forced upon him by the expiration of those tax cuts at the end of the year. but it seems to be embraced as what he wants to work on. president obama is not arguing for that tax cut expiration date to be extended, to be put off for awhile, to work on something else in the meantime. he seems to want this fight. not only talking about this reminding everybody that it is what he campaigned on when he won reelection. "the new york times" is he's employing the support information data base he built during his campaign toward trying to win that policy fight. and again, in addition to that,

there's the breaking news of the president seeming to be lining his ducks in a row for nominating susan rice for secretary of state. the potential nominee taking meetings with the senate foreign relations committee, including john mccain, tomorrow morning. she will be taking that meeting alongside the acting director of the cia. in addition to this fight over the tax cuts, the president is not shying away from the secretary of state fight either. we know what he's being pressured to do and we know what he'd like to get done in the second term. by looming over all of those factors, looming over all of the decisions that the white house and the president himself are making right now over what to do with this second term, how to start this second term, looming over all of it is the modern american history and even the not-so-modern american history.

the best-laid plans more often than not get derailed. for all of the advice a president gets, history offers the best caution for thinking that a second-term president can control how history remembers him. watch this. >> as with other second term presidents, bill clinton still hopes to leave his mark but with smaller steps. an approach more likely to please politicians than historians. >> i would say if he's interested in impressing scholars of the future, one thing he can do is turn back on the modest strategy the last two years. >> and take risks? >> take some risks and identify some issue where is he can take a courageous position, convert americans to his point of view, and make it easier for future presidents. >> could do. or he could have an affair with an intern named monica lewinsky and see how the second term turns out.

things don't always go as we think they are going to go. joining us is a man who did have excellent advice for president clinton at the start of his second term, except for maybe the take a risk part. presidential historian michael beschloss joins us now. thank you for being here. it's nice to have you here. >> thank you, rachel. i'm waiting for you to show my baby pictures. >> you're one of the few people who we can show historical archive footage and you look better now than you did then. let me ask you about the president's comments after being reelected that he's aware of the history of overreach in the second term, implying he's been reading that history and trying to take its lessons. what are the lessons of modern presidential history in terms of the second term?

>> often not great, as you have been saying. first of all, we have to give him points for reading the history and benefitting from it. often times, presidents either don't read it or don't learn the lessons. but i think he has. one of the lessons, he was referring to it in the press conference, don't think your reelection gives you a mandate that goes beyond what it is. don't overreach. lyndon johnson had the biggest landslide in history and prosecuted the vietnam war for years. tens of thousands of americans dead on the basis of a flimsy resolution. that was overreach. 1973, i'm not even going to talk about nixon and watergate. we forget the fact that nixon came into a second term, wanted to roll back the great society and new deal and people said you don't have either house of congress. he said, fine. what i'm going to do is impoundment. i just won't spend the money for programs i don't like. and he started doing it.

had watergate not come about, he might well have been impeached for that. >> it's remarkable to see that as such a consistent theme in history. and i'm generally skeptical of things that seem that consistent. but some of these things seem to be brought on by presidential overreach. others are brought on by stupidity or bad luck or thinking about the affair with the intern. as the president right now is saying that he's going to try to draft the support from his reelection, trying to draft the energy and the technical information he has about his supporters to help him get his agenda brought across, is there anybody who has laid out a template for that? does that fit into this pattern? >> that's very smart. often times presidents will say i just got this big landslide and anyone in congress who opposes me, i'll go back to their district or state and campaign against them. they wind up not often doing it.

the obama campaign twice now has been one of the most effective campaign operations in american history. it's going to be fascinating if we can see for the first time him using that on behalf of the things he wants done. >> we have seen the president telegraph that he's working on the tax issue. we're also seeing signs that this susan rice nomination for secretary of state, which john mccain had essentially picked a fight over and said if you do this i will do anything in my power to block that. he's moderated his position somewhat, but there's the issue of having to refill a cabinet, staff positions for a second term. are there lessons in getting fresh ideas from fresh sources? it seems interesting that the president would pick something that's going to test his resolve. >> i think that's right. and it may be his intentionally showing he does have the power, even to get through a nomination that some people on capitol hill do not support. so i think we may well see that.

but rachel, it's human nature that people grow tired after one term. often times, they leave. in terms of getting great talent from outside the government, often times people are a lot more attracted to work for a president in the fire of his first months in office than they are for a president who is going to be a lame duck fairly soon. so often times, the second term people are not as good as you find in the first. >> and picking a fight over them has a different cost benefit analysis. presidential historian michael beschloss, it's always a pleasure to have you here. the good news, republicans have learned a lesson since their resounding electoral defeat. the bad news, it's not the lesson they said they were going to learn. it's backwards totally. it doesn't even sound right when you sing it. that's next. most impressive technology often comes with a set of equally impressive instructions ?

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in the great state of indiana, the republican party has looked at what happened in the election. losing their senate seat and looking how the parties faired and what people thought about the issues they had a chance to vote on. they took the proverbial cold shower tough take after a party losing a national election and republicans decided that after this election in response to this election what they really need to do is doubly, triply, ban gay marriage.

you can't get married right now. it's already illegal, but the republican party decided that their priority for the new session after this election to extra doubly, triply ban it by changing the constitution of the state of indiana to make it even more illegal than it already is. because you know, why not? law students released a report explaining how the idea for banning gay marriage in the constitution could have broad, unintended consequences for more than 600 other laws already on the books in that state. it's funny. if you listen to the beltway talk about what's going on in american politics, the major narrative about what's going on is about the sort of course correction happening in the republican party. the republican party has learned its lesson. if only in the interest of self-preservation, republicans are giving up on these policy stances that cost them so much

in the last election that made their party seem pre-modern. all of the stuff that alienated young people, women, gay people, if you listen to the beltway media, the course correction on this problem post-election is totally underway. >> we didn't sell a positive vision. we didn't explain to people what we're for. >> we have to show we're serious about reaching out and helping everyone. everyone in this country to live their peace and the american dream. >> it's one thing to shoot yourself in the foot. just don't reload the gun. i intend to not reload the gun. i intend to tear this wall down and pass an immigration reform bill. >> it makes sense. >> we're in a death spiral because of rhetoric around immigration. >> we have to do immigration reform. >> if you listen to the beltway media, you'd think the new republican party is out there

organizing farm workers, shutting down the border patrol. and i'm sure for electoral reasons, the new republican party would like it to seem like they are new and that's what they are doing. but where republicans are really this control of government like say in kansas where republicans control the legislature and the governorship, what's their big republican post-election pro-immigration reform move there? a crackdown on immigrants who want to go to college. we need to shut that down. all over the country if you look at state newspapers covering what it is that republicans are planning to do, where they have governing authority in the states, the contrast between that reporting and the beltway discussion about what republicans theoretically ought to be doing, it's like reading news from two totally different universes. totally disconnected. look at the issue of abortion in women's health. here's what it sounds like in the beltway.

>> when we talk about women's issues and the social issues, people have to stop trying to act like the women as throw away here. republican candidates who got high profile and said some very stupid things, i think that really tainted the party. >> our side got invested in idiotic debate about contraception during the primary. obviously when we have top tier recruited senate candidates actually bringing up a discussion about rape, this is not healthy. >> as far as young women are concerned, absolutely. i don't think anybody like me, i can state my position on abortion, but other than that, leave the issue alone. >> if you are only getting a

beltway-driven national picture of the republican party's post-election strategy, you would think that they had figured out that they are prioritizing rolling back abortion rights was a bad idea and they figured out they need to move on from that. if you listen to the beltway media, you'd think not only are they learning this lesson, but they have moved on from it, they have changed. somebody forgot to tell that to the republicans who are running things in this country. one of the first things ohio republicans did after the election, one of the first things they did was hold a committee on defunding planned parenthood. where they have governing authority, you'd never know the beltway decided the whole abortion thing is done with. because in wisconsin, republican legislators are talking about four new different anti-abortion bills for the new session including a forced ultrasound bill because maybe america needs two governor ultrasounds. republicans are lining up to sponsor this stuff.

in arkansas, same deal. republicans announcing their intention to push through a bunch of new anti-abortion bills that have failed to win approval in previous sessions. in michigan, republicans planning to revise their sweeping anti-abortion legislation that passed the house last session. experts say it would likely shut down most of the state's abortion clinics. americans' experience of what republican governance is like is happening at the state level, not the federal level. they are talking about what they would do if they were in charge of something. americans real-lived experience of republicans in charge, of republicans enacting their policies and people being expected to live under them, that's happening in places where republicans are not at all changing their tune. i'm going after immigrants, demonizing immigrants for trying to go to college.

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i can just say one more thing about john mccain going on his 21st sunday show of the year yesterday and saying they need to work on immigration reform and needs to leave the abortion issue alone. for the record with everybody taking john mccain on a sunday show so seriously about what the republican party is going to do or even what john mccain personally is going to do, for the record, here's what john mccain himself has actually done on those issues. on abortion rights and women's health, here's how john mccain has personally models this behavior that he describes for these issues. the folks keep track of these things. on how he's left the abortion issue alone. dozens of times continually voting not to leave abortion at all, but to take them away from american women entirely.

as a matter of policy. that's how he's left that issue alone. he also said sunday in that same breath that the republican party needs to work on comprehensive immigration reform, obviously. here's how john mccain led on the issue of immigration reform when he had the chance to be a party leader on that subject. here's his determined leadership on that issue back in 2008 when he had the chance to lead on it. >> your original immigration proposal in 2006 was much broader and included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were already here. what i'm wondering, and you seem to be down playing that part. at this point, if your original proposal came to a vote in the senate floor, would you vote for it? >> it won't. that's why we went through the debate. no, i would not. >> i wouldn't vote on my own bill. why would i do that? what would happen if the sunday shows stopped booking john mccain every week?

what he says doesn't even reflect his own life and politics. 21 sundays this year so far and the years not even in its last month. when does it start being embarrassing to put that senator on tv every week as if he's someone whose words mean something. [ emily jo ] derrell comes into starbucks with his wife, danielle, almost every weekend. derrell hasn't been able to visit his mom back east in a long time. [ shirley ] things are sometimes a little tight around the house. i wasn't able to go to the wedding. [ emily jo ] since derrell couldn't get home, we decided to bring home to him and then just gave him a little bit of help finding his way. ♪

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here's a word time. fadodo. it means fall asleep. what you see here is a dance contest from around the time of world war ii when couples tried to stay on their feet for humanly possible. you might call an all-nighter like this a fadodo. maybe a don't fall asleep. we have a version of this in politics. we like to think we do. it was memorialized by frank capra. mr. smith talks for 24 hours in that one. filibusters rarely last as long as that. huey long talked for 15 hours

once. 22 hours and 26 minutes over an oil bill. a few years later, senator thurman spent 24 hours and 18 minutes up there defending white southerners. you need 60 votes to stop it. you need 60 votes to shut it down. until you got those votes, whoever was in the minority just kept talking. no voting, i'm still talking and you can't stop me. nighty night. we know about the old examples because a filibuster used to happen so rarely because when it did happen the public noticed. now it's not even a filibuster. these days any senator can block any piece of legislation by raising a hand and saying so.

a senator can block legislation without even paying the cause of anybody noticing and having the constituents back home asking why they are holding the floor to make some big point. with the filibuster now being so comparatively cheap to come by, it's become unusually plentiful in washington. the modern senate is setting records for filibustering. you effectively need not a majority but 60 votes, a super majority to do anything now. and so as you would expect, our current congress has passed fewer laws since world war ii. they are passing less than 3% of all bills introduced. compared to say the 1950s, that's a dropoff of roughly 90%. but here's the thing. the senate can do something about this. the senate can change the rules for filibusters with a simple majority vote. on the first day of the new session and only on that day can they make that change. harry reid, the democratic

majority leader, wants to make some changes. debate has to start before a filibuster can begin. he might require any senator wishing to filibuster to stand up there and talk to which republicans are saying if you do that, we the minority are going to burn the place down. senator tom coburn of oklahoma saying, "i think the backlash will be severe. if you take away minority rights because that's what you're doing, you'll destroy this place. if you destroy the place, we'll do what we have to fight back." john cornyn says if democrats change the rules, it will shut down the senate, it's such an abuse of power. you might ask how their threats of a shutdown differ materially from the shutdown senate now when the minority will not allow a majority vote on anything giving them the power to control the senate. we called the two senators and asked specifically what they

propose to do if they manage to tweak the filibuster. senator cornyn's office got back to us, but not with an answer. senator coburn did not respond, but he did give politico.com a hint of what he might do. "i will filibuster any way i can. you ought to be willing to get out and earn it. i don't have any problems with that. he says he will respond to being told he has to old-time filibuster by really old-time filibusters. i actually think the democrats would be okay with that. that's what they are proposing. what's your objection, sir? i don't know yet whether harry reid and the democrats can must er 51 votes to change. but it sort of appears that harry reid's side is winning argument already saying they will do what the democrats are

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what these democrats have in mind is a change for the purpose of consolidating their own power

and further marginalizing the minority voices the senate was built to protect. >> republican senator mitch mcconnell today on why democrats should not change the senate rules in order to stop his minority republican party from controlling what happens in the senate. joining us now for the interview is sherrod brown, senator from ohio who just won reelection, even though he got buried in ads run against him. senator brown, congratulations on your reelection. i haven't seen you since. >> thank you, rachel. and i heard you call the race on your show, so thank you. >> ta da! if you are going to be in the senate for another six years now, i have to ask you directly, should the rules in the senate change there on day one in january? >> yeah, absolutely. the same gentleman you just listened to, mitch mcconnell, talked about the dysfunction in the senate. that's what's happened the last four years.

he was the same gentleman who said after the 2010 elections that his number one goal was to defeat the president of the united states in the next election. and he did everything to do that, including invoking filibuster time after time after time after time. we have never seen anything like the four years of blocking action in the senate. that's been the real abuse of power. we want to get the senate moving to enact the people's will. we're asking just to begin to debate these issues. they block issues from coming on the floor to debate. that's what senator tom udall have been advocating for some time. i feel good about our chances in a month or so. >> i always hear from beltway folks that no majority party should ever want to change the rules about this because you will wish you hadn't when your party becomes the minority. if you and the democrats were in

the minority some time during the next term, could you live with the rule changes that are being proposed? >> i could. after elections, the public thinks things should happen. it's clear the public spoke loudly. they reelected a president who carried almost all of the swing states. won by 100 electoral votes. picked up senate seats where the numbers were stacked against us. going back to 1964 numbers, literally, and picked up house seats and didn't win a majority because of redistricting if you look at the additive numbers, all the numbers of house votes for democrats and republicans across the country. it's clear the public wants something done. and mcconnell doesn't want us to do any of these things. that's the importance of making the senate a more functional body. in senate change there on ta one in january. >> yeah, absolutely. the same gentleman you just listened to, mitch mcconnell, the dysfunction of what would

happen with the senate. he was the same gentleman who said two years ago that after the 2010 elections, his number one goal was to defeat the president of the united states in the next election and he did everything to do that. he's never seen anything like the last four years of blocking action in the senate like a real abuse of power. we're asking just to begin to debate these issues. they block issues from even going to the floor and that's what senators have been advocating for a long time. senator reid is now supportive. i feel good about our chances in a month or so. >> i hear from beltway folks that no majority should want to change the rules about that because you would wish you hadn't when your party becomes the minority. if the democrats were in the moi norty, could you live with the rule changes that the democrats and senator reid are proposing? we see up or down votes on the people's visit. most people don't talk about process when you're out campaigning or at town hall

meetings. i heard so many times what are you going to do so the senate can get things done. they don't care a lot about our senate rules and rule 22 and what used to happen in the senate. they know the senate is a more dysfunctional body than it's been in years and years and years and they want to see something happen. they voted for change and we want to be able to move forward. >> this is something that gets discussed forever, but when i talk to senators such as yourself, those involved in the process that would make this potentially happen, it feels like this year, it's the real deal. we'll see if that's true. sherrod brown, democratic senator from ohio. thank you, sir. still ahead, who is being dug up tomorrow? and why? turns out, it's important. that's coming up.

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here's a weird one. in 1993, the president of turkey died apparently of a heart

attack. i say apparently, because his family claimed he did not die of natural causes. they said he was assassinated. when he did die, his family said they feared he had been poisoned. there was no autopsy. the blood samples taken to determine the cause of death, they went walkies and then last month, turkey decided to dig him up. they dug up their former president's pod di and tested it for poisons that might have killed him and according to turkish state media, they found four things. ddt, a related and also poisonous compound called dde, plus, a highly toxic metal and two radio active compounds. this former turkish president

might not be the most famous world leader to be exhumed under a cloud of suspicious about his cloud of death only to test positive for radio active poisoning. maybe not this week because tomorrow, they are digging up yasser arafat. within a couple of weeks, he was dead. doctors said the official cause of death was some sort of inexplicable blood condition and a stroke, but most palestinians did not believe that. the sudden illness, that nondiagnosis, a lot of people, arafat's family in particular, thought maybe he had been murdered. that was eight years ago when he died. then this summer, news channel al jazeer, the belongings she handed over included some of the clothes he was wearing at the end of his life.

one of those gauzey hospital hats and a toothbrush. they sent them to a lab in switzerland. the scientists conducted specific tests for signs of poisons and eventually, they landed on plutonium. that does not mean he was murdered. it exists in a natural form. it's also possible his clothes were exposed to it after he died, but all this means really is the only way to know for sure that's what killed him is to test his body itself and so, the palestinians are digging him up. they are exhuming his body tomorrow. they've removed the stones from his tomb and concealed it off. scientists from france, russia and switzerland are already on

site. tomorrow, they will open it. the scientists will remove samples from the body, which will then test independently from one another. some in france, some in russia, some in switzerland, then the remaining remains will be reburied that same day. we are told to expect the results of those tests about four months from now and that is because the manmade very rare form they'll be looking for as a potential murder weapon, it is a half-life of about four months. the kind you find in nature doesn't have that kind of half-life, so if they find it in his body that they're going to take out of the tomb tomorrow, they will need to watch what happens to that over time to know if the radiation was just an environmental thing or if it was murder. other than these two political leaders who may have been killed by plutonium, there are a handful that have been killed by the staff. one was marie curie's daughter.

another was the russian spy, alexander -- so, marie curie's daughter, a russian dissent, a turkish president and arafat. now, the last word with lawrence o'donnell. have a great night. have you ever been dumped? it's rough. have you ever been dumped by someone who made a lifetime promise to you? and did that person dump you on tv? and then, when you were still reeling from that, completely